Shattered Crimson
by Nievla
Summary: "He's a good kid, and he sure as hell didn't get that from me" "'What about the mother'-'Well, that's a whole other story'" This is the story of Matt's parents, their life together, how it all crumbled apart, and the treachery of fate that, after more than twenty years, once more brought shattered blood together.
1. Introduction

_"He's a good kid, and he sure as hell didn't get that from me". "'What about the mother?'-'Well, that's a whole other story'"_

 _Matt Murdock can't remember his mother. Not her face, or her voice. A whiff, a scent of a memory, perhaps, but nothing else. His dad never spoke of her, and soon he learnt not to ask. But what happens when, after more than twenty years, they inadvertently meet again?_

 _This is the story of Matt's parents, their life together, how it all crumbled apart, and the treachery of fate that once more brought shattered blood together._

I came up with this idea while watching the second episode of Netflix's _Daredevil_. I was intrigued as to who Jack asks to take care of Matt once he's gone, on the phone. Presumably it's his wife/Matt's mother, however the conversation is kind of intriguing. But later, in the episode "Stick", young Matt is in an orphanage, and when asked about his mother, one of the nuns just says "Well, that's a whole other story".

So, what _is_ that "story"? I searched around wildly for fanfics about it, but I couldn't find a single one. So that's what brought you this fic; since no one else had, I'd have to write it myself XD.

Although neither the movie or the series bring her up much, I researched the comic canon and this is what I found: her name is Maggie Murdock, and she and Jack had Matt when they were a young couple. However, when he was a baby, she started suffering from some sort of mental illness (I think it said it was postpartum depression but I'm not sure), and while having some sort of attack tried to harm him. Distraught with guilt, she fled and stayed away from her family, becoming a nun. Years later Matt comes to her church wounded and she nurses him back to life.

I gather that's basically what happened in the comics. However this fanfiction is going to take a different turn, in part because I'm kind of scared of touching upon mental illnesses in my writing, in case I offend someone, and also because the series itself is quite different to the comics, so I'll be focusing on following its tone and themes instead. It's going to be far more dramatic and angsty, hopefully XD. It's also somewhat based on a novel idea which I've kind of abandoned, and inspired by a roleplay/fanfic I was writing with a friend, but which ultimately died too. Hopefully this fic won't!

It's highly probable that in the following seasons they'll incorporate Matt's mother into the story, and therefore this fanfic will be an AU. But until then, I'll carry on writing it! It will be structured in two timelines: present day, from both Matt and Maggie's point of view; and past, from Maggie and maybe sometimes Jack's POV.

I hope you like reading this; if you have any comments or criticism, please let me know. Ireally appreciate constructive criticism, so if you have any ideas on how I could improve my prose/characterisation/dialogue, etc, I would love to hear from you!

Enjoy!


	2. Prologue

Bless me father, for I have sinned.

The walls return my words in an echo, cold, hard, like the tremor of trembling lips. I try again, but this time the holy air seems to swallow my words, push them back down into my chest with fists of ancient granite, and my lips split, wordless, but are only kissed by silence.

Speech is the shield of those who have fear. And, contrary to popular belief, it is not evil, that red hot whip of wariness, that wallowing beast that sucks the life out of a person. No, in fact, fear is but the single emotion, beastly as it might be, that can birth the rare gem that is the brave man or woman. Like a treacherous stream, it sucks those who dare to cross its boundaries into its groping depths, but once it spills its freezing waters into the vastness of the sea, its victims would already have experienced the most tortuous currents on this earth, the most vicious of beasts, and that which the calm expanse of the ocean has to offer seems calm, timid, placable, and for them swimming is like a woodcutter bringing their axe down on butter. And even if it weren't, even if it were a demon with red horns, the devil in crimson, he or she who has already held their breath against the claws of fear will never hesitate to step in its path, and overcome it. That is bravery. Not the lack of fear, but the acceptance of its agony, and the will to conquer it.

And that is why I am no brave soul, no hero. Here I kneel, a figure lonely as the statue of a weeping angel, and I feel no fear: it has kept its gurgling tentacles far from me, shrivelling away from the poison of my soul, let them strangle someone else. For I have knelt beneath the cross of suffering, and embraced my agony, cradled it against my chest as a punishment, and a restitution, for that I lost. For that I killed. And I have wept for it, and the pain has swept across me until it has become me, until all I can do is release others from its clench, but never rid myself of it. That is why I feel no fear. My knees are broken from kneeling, and so my fear is broken by weeping droplets of blood and shattered soul. For fear can only turn upon itself when faced with pain, and that is what I have suffered, and with this dark robe to shelter me, embraced.

I draw the cross upon my body, from brow to shoulders to lips. My fingers, hardened by the cold, leave a tingling trail of electricity in the air, like the tail of a fleeting comet. I lower my eyes into the stillness, expand my senses, feel the whisper of dust settling on varnished benches, the stardust of angels striding high above. My consciousness expands like trepidating fingers into an aura of infatuated curiosity, and like a creature blind, caress the thin layer of gelid stone that sends shivers up the pillars, licks at the air like tendrils of heatless flame, whipping it into calm, empty, godly serenity, before wafting to the stained-glass windows and basking in their warmth until then, no longer cold, they once again descend upon my body in the form of shafts of hazy sunlight, gentle, long, bearers of His soft gaze.

I let my eyes fall closed. I see nothing, yet it seems oddly right, foreignly familiar, as if some distant part of me were constantly living in that perceptive blindness, not stumbling, but gliding through it, the drumming of smell and sound and touch to guide it. I focus on it, and suddenly I find myself running fingers over a dim thread, old, ever untouched. I don't know how I have come upon it, but it is glazed with dust, and withered to the point of no remembrance. I touch it, slowly, almost knowing what comes next. A knife stabs through my chest. This is a cord of pain, one of many from my past, which will inevitably lead me to the same fate: Remembrance. Guilt. Agony.

I sigh, and shift,with the vague intention somewhere of pulling out of this trance, of fleeing back away from this string of memory and back into the embrace of the Church, away from it into the healing stillness of the cross, yet in my gut I know I must tread this path, this thistle of memory. I have no choice. There is no escape. I clasp the thread, wrap it in a fist, wire and string and dust of ages and all, and within already closed eyes, I close my eyes. Again, I am blind, and I am not alone. The realisation punctures me in a shrill scream, and hot pools beat against my pressed eyelids.

I had never known Death was blind.

Because like his father, whose passing I only heard of time after my flight, my son is dead. Death took him, as it does the many others I offer it, and that is why when I try to remember his wide eyes, his sweet face, all I see is the black veil of Death . He has never grown, never loved, never even suffered. All, because of my doing, my shame, my crusade, my rage. My little Matty is dead, and I killed him.

Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.


	3. Chapter 1

_This chapter is mainly an introduction to the character's situations in both past and present; I promise she'll meet Jack soon, though, and there are also some chapters from Matt's point of view coming up. I hope you enjoy it! Note: Trigger warning for implied child death, and hints of self harm in the last few paragraphs of this chapter. Nothing explicit, though._

Since I was a child, I have seen the world on fire. I do believe, though some of those I've told dismiss it as fantasy, others as madness, that when I was born into this world darker than the womb, the first face I saw was that of the flame.  
It has always stricken me as strange, how we never know what face: whose lips our gaze first traced, whose eyes first sought ours, and delved into our soul. We never know; was it those of the nurse, or our mother, or father...?  
It is ever a mystery, one of those many questions shrouded in cloud, given, perhaps, too little importance. But the truth is, I know. Somehow, unfailingly, each time my gaze meets the leaping flames, burning, breaking, warming, I _know_ that when my eyes first fluttered open, they did not meet the dreamy blue of my mothers', nor the forest green of my fathers', but rather that piercing red of smothering coals and pouncing embers: the eyes of the devil.

But my parents, they would sneer at that. "What are you talking about, sweetie?" My mother would exclaim, bundling me into the corner of our newly-assembled tepee. She would wrap me in mountains of blankets, old and new, itchy and soft and clogged with burs, their woven, sometimes fraying threads having soaked up the smell of cigarette smoke and bonfires and wet dog until they wrapped me not only in warmth, but in the telling of their own fascinating stories.

"There is no devil" a symmetrical wrinkle would form between her brows. "That is only what city people assume, sweetie. They haven't _connected_ yet. They can't _feel_ the secrets of nature. You and I and Daddy and all of us here, we know the truth of the world, we're in _harmony_ ". At this point she would breathe in deeply through her nose, eyelids closed over her pale eyes, and I remember wishing, with wonder, that I could be like her. That I could understand the meanings that the incense, travelling, and constant contact with flora and fauna painted in her mind like abstract paintings. But I couldn't. Later, I would come to understand that much of this sprung from her consumption of varied substances, which flew from hand to hand within the nomadic group I grew up with as if they were completely legal. However, now I realize, and I wonder, whether perhaps it was some connection forbidden from me, some instinct granted to those who are perceptive to see with clarity beyond what we perceive.

"Those city people" she continued "they're surrounded by concrete and cars, and petrol and smoke. They are so covered in these toxic things that they can't open their minds up to /feel/ the spirits and the magic that dance through this world, so they make up a name for what they do feel. They make up a name for their rage. And they're afraid of it, the same way people used to call connected ones like us witches and demons. My love, there is no devil. What is in the fire are only flame faeries, beautiful but deadly, who love us and warm us but burn our fingers if we get too close"

At that moment, I wanted to ask her that wasn't that, precisely, what rage was. And if the devil were other people's way of seeing rage, it must be the devil, too. I also wanted to inquire, as I always did, why I couldn't see these "faeries", but knew that she would simply respond by reprimanding me for being "too rational", and that I shouldn't try to "see", but simply "feel". And, perhaps, I wanted to remind her that she, too, was a city girl, who had run away from the slums of Hell's Kitchen to join the caravan of colorful, spiritual, wild hippies who slipped from one field to another like raindrops down a window, picking up some people and barely leaving any behind, even creating new ones, like myself. But I said nothing, and kissed my mother goodnight, basking in the husky scent of dried leaves and honeysuckle that surged around her like angel's wings, light, protective, kind. Even after she left, to dance and drink and smoke around the fire, I would huddle in the scent's embrace as it rocked me to sleep, curling against the chill hide of the tepee, allowing my ears to explore the creaking chirp of the crickets and the thud of dancing feet on damp earth. But most of all, before drifting, wayward, into the vast waters of sleep, I would linger on the crackling of the fire, the sound of it whipping the air, and listen to its heartbeat.

They sometimes spoke about Hell's Kitchen. Not in the way they chattered while peeling potatoes in the sun or sitting around the campfire, but in hushed, wary tones, the kind in which folk dismiss the horrors of the war or the doings of a serial killer: with fear. My father was a country boy, and he listened severely more than he talked, but my mother would whisper about it, describe it, and it filled me with horror. It was as if her words were the sketching of some hell I could be thrust into, full of thugs and violence and crime. My childish mind, accustomed only to the dome of temperamental skies, the shadows of mountains and the damp grass between my bare toes, could not even fathom what she spoke of: concrete, concrete everywhere. Cars in masses, like herds of cows, yet more smelly, and less coordinated. Smoke, rising from every corner, blotting out the sky so that you couldn't even see the stars at night. And worst of all- the people, crammed so closely together you could barely walk.  
All this I thought I could imagine. And it horrified me, but I would only realize the true extent of it when I fist set foot in the city almost a decade later- but that is a story for another time, and one that you shall know in very little time, if my tale goes as planned.

With all this, I grew to be a skeptical child. "Factory" was synonymous to "evil" and "city" connoted "disgusting". Not only this, but my naturally critical mind, being confined by the liberal beliefs of my parents, became, frankly, blatantly judgmental. Somehow, I believed I was special, always right, and that everyone who didn't live like my family did were ignorant and somehow lesser. Talking about "city people" in our group was like talking about a swarm of wasps.  
In truth, this is the one fault of mine that truly does not come to punish me in the dead of the night, the only one I do not feel guilt for. Though, in essence, I do believe my mind to have been born critical and discerning, not always for the best, this mentality I held for the most part of my childhood was all nurture and no nature. My scant knowledge of the world, at seven years old, had been passed on to me second-hand by people who had scuttled to the margins of society, and all else was cut off to me by the vastness of my isolation. We rarely toppled into anyone else but the members of the caravan, and the only other two children were separated from me by a rift of at least five years. So, honestly speaking, I was a child who lived in true isolation, and whose insatiable curiosity found only limited, biased knowledge to cling to.

This changed however, at the age of ten, when I discovered something truly beautiful: Books.

We had been passing through a small town on our way north to Maine, and setting up camp on the outskirting fields, my parents had, as they always did, encouraged and let me run rampant to my heart's desire. I rarely spoke to other children; not that I didn't long to, but more because I had no idea how to even approach them, let alone exchange words. I was a shy child, and a sudden sickening anxiousness would overwhelm me when faced with the prospect of having to interact with a _stranger_.

So I dejectedly made my way around the field where a group happily kicked round a ball, sticking to the shadows and vaguely wondering when dinner would be ready.

Then I found the library.

It was a tiny building, nestled between other, taller, more important constructions. It sat there like a fat old woman in an armchair, its walls sagging and tilting, windows clouded by years of mist and frost. The porch was adorned with drooping flowers below a sign which read "Public Library", paint peeling. The door swung open into a hazy greyness that immediately beckoned me. I inhaled, held my breath, and slipped inside.

As my eyes adjusted to the shadow of the room, I realized two things: one, that I could barely move without toppling into one of the many sky-high towers of books that surrounded me, and two, that I was not alone.

A creaky chuckle almost sent me darting back out the door again like a startled animal, if it weren't for my fear of knocking down one of the towering book stacks. I jumped and, wide-eyed, stared at the woman that sat behind the old wooden desk which, unsurprisingly, also supported several towers of volumes. She lowered her glasses, paused, and then said:  
"Well, look what we have here! A child! Haven't seen one of those in here for a while, thought they might've gone extinct!"  
I gulped, debating whether to flee while I could or try to answer with something witty. I did neither of those things, but simply stood, wide-eyed, and stared.  
She was a funny-looking person, skinny as a cat, with short-cropped white hair that stuck up in spikes as if someone had covered her head with whipped cream. Her clothes were completely black, and clung so tightly to her skin that the protruding bones of her elbows and knees were clearly visible. Her ancient face was freckled, the hazel eyes startlingly jovial, like gemstones twinkling under the breath of the sun.

I liked her immediately.

In the hours that followed, she lead me through the labyrinth of close-packed books tacks like an enthusiastic touristic guide, ambling on with no walking stick but the support of her shelves. She showed me everything, not only the boringly bright children's books, but the novels as thick as logs, classics, encyclopedias. At this last section I stopped, and picked up a book on marine animals. The drawings were darkly vivid, and I found myself gasping with the turn of each page. A lot of the words were completely foreign to me- I had learnt to read, but only through question-and-answer with my parents, inquiring as to what the words on a road sign, or the back of a milk carton, meant. I had never seen anything like this. I loved it. I wanted to delve into those oceans and be lost, turn into a fish or dolphin with searing fins and a powerful tail, disappear into a vast blue sea.

She told me I could take the book, and we moved on.  
She was incessantly talking, even when she stopped to ply a book from its shelf, shuffle it open and sniff its pages, a gesture that at first puzzled me, but that I later found rather charming, up to the point where it later became a habit of mine, too. I followed her like an awestruck tourist, mouth agape, gaping with marvel at all the knowledge that piled up upon the silent shelves and sturdily wobbly stacks. Perhaps that is the reason for which I answered her incessant, and rather rude, questions, with none of my usual suspicious covertness. "I haven't seen you around before, are you new in town?"Who would do that? Who would even want to move into this _lovely_ town?..." then "So your parents are travelers, eh?" and "How do you learn, you just hop from school to school, just like that?"

At this I halted, startled. I knew what school was, yet had only heard of it as something that "normal" children did, and had barely given it any thought. I stood, something changed within me, suddenly realizing in a thud of consciousness that all this knowledge, all of these words, could be shown to me in that place that they called school. It could be at my very fingertips. And yet my parents had always told me never to tell anyone that I didn't go, that bad people would come and take me away because "the system is brutal and corrupt" and "they put things in your head, sweetie, make things up and then drill them into you, make you believe what isn't true! Children don't learn there, they're turned into brainwashed servants! We want you to be free, sweetie, an independent young woman. You can learn in other ways that aren't through textbooks. Those are not the only fields of knowledge."

But I wanted to learn from these books. I wanted to learn about species and the insides of things and the way things /worked/. And in front of that audacious old lady with black hawk eyes, I shrugged, and told her the truth.

She looked at me for a moment, expression impenetrable, turned, and then continued on her tour of the library as if the question had never been asked.

When we had already scanned the same dusty stacks of books several times, both our knees were beginning to bend with exhaustion, and the light did little more than flop tremulously through the misted window panes, only then did she look at me fixedly, and, without a word, hand me a pile of books that stacked up all the way to my chin and under whose weight I almost collapsed.  
As my gaze flitted over the titles, I realized what they were: school books, old and grimy and bound in transparent plastic with the remnants of erasers and ink squished onto the covers, but nonetheless knowledge. There was a collection of "Grade 7s"- baby books for seven year olds, I supposed, unlabeled books which I could only assume were independent, non-school readings, and "Grade 11s" and I smiled, thinking in my innocence that these books were meant for eleven year-olds, and that a nine-year old like myself wouldn't have too much of a hard time keeping up. As children do, I didn't even consider that there was an equal age gap between nine and seven and eleven and nine, much less that grades didn't in fact follow the ages of the pupil. But it hardly mattered. She had given me everything; Math, language, music, physics, chemistry... I felt the urge to jump with joy, but resisted doing so for fear of dropping my precious load. Instead, I stretched out my neck to wedge them under my chin, and opened my mouth to thank her, but she was already shuffling back towards her shelves, hunched back turned to me. After a moment of waiting, I came to realize that she wouldn't turn around, so I smiled a tiny toothed smile, muttered a "thank you", not as loudly as I had hoped, and quickly slipped out of the ajar door.

* * *

I breathe a cold whisper, a muted prayer. The memories flee me, like birds flitting away upon a dawn-rosed sea, flying to hide in the warm breast of the past as if trying to escape the winter. If I continue treading this path to the past, the icicles will pierce me. My own hands will flog my soul bare, until I am screaming, barely blood and bone, fastened to life only by the holy threads of this church, and yet still suffering.  
I stand, slowly. My knees leave the cold stone in a shrill song of frozen pain, then clench as I straighten them, test my weight on them. Move. The silence shifts around me, wrapping my head in voices, cold and heavy, some latching onto my clothes with claws of dread, others buoying me upwards, out of the chapel door, up the winding steps that ring under my foot's every touch, always talking.  
I reach the door. Made of wood, plain like the room it swings into, void of all but a chest, chair and cot. My sanctuary, where I can push my hurt to the corners of the stained stone walls, fight the battle in silence, alone, empty. The door thuds closed behind me, and I am alone now. The veil whispers against my ears as I pull it back, the cold water hammers against my nostrils as I plunge my face into the frigid basin, searching in the coldness for emptiness of mind, begging for it, pleading that the memories go away, before I revisit those times which were the happiest of my life, and the way I butchered them. How I killed, how I killed... I shake my head, bring it up from the water, my nose and cheeks trailing droplets that rain upon the turmoil of the basin like an orchestra of ripples. How I killed...  
Go away!" I want to shriek, and my eyes search frantically for something else, latching upon a small chip in the stone, searching its minuscule nooks and crannies, anything to grasp onto so that I won't fall into that memory that is calling me, that thought, that blade, that trap.  
And I slip.  
The scream never comes first. My brain never allows the memory to finish quickly. And so, knuckles white as I grasp the edges of the basin, come the sounds: a sigh. Laughter. A giggle, light, so young, born from a toothless smile so bright I think I'm going to melt where I stand. A lullaby, sung from my own throat, when my voice was not yet hoarse and broken from weeping. The heart-swelling, precious whisper of a baby's yawn.  
Then the scream.  
It wrenches the air around me, twists it into writhing daggers that accost me at all sides, clenches my throat in the strangle of wishful death. The scream. It rings and echoes, hammering my mind, a scream of pain, fear, incomprehension. My face plunges back into the water, shocking white light, needles of cold incompetent against the snake of agony who has once again stung me with his venom. I scream, a shrill warble in a tempestuous pool. And I scream, and scream, not caring that I'm choking on the water that fills my open mouth, or that my body goes hazy, weak from the lack of oxygen. And for a split second, like a gust of breeze, it does cover the sound that rings in my mind, and I feel relief.  
But then it comes again. The scream. Forever ingrained in me, etched in minute, perfect detail of memory. A fire burning, a husband calling, a blade singing, the sighing thud of needle hitting soft flesh. Scream. Cry. Death.

And then I flee, and the memory blurs around me, sifts itself together into a smudge of lights and bricks and metal, and guilt, and agony. I lift my face from the water. Breathe. Tremble. Shivering, I tumble over the stinging floor, throat aching, fists clenched in tremors. The blade is under my pillow. I fall on white sheets, the black of my habit drifting into the cotton like wayward waves into dry sand.

I haven't done it in almost a year now. But I must numb the pain.

The sharpness slices over my twisted skin. Relief. Cool. The only way I can weep, the bliss of release, my soul weeping instead of my eyes. These I close, and drift once again into memory, unafraid now of reaching the worst. There is still time to go.

In the stillness of the lonely room, the white sheets of sleep are tinged red. In the distance of a back alley, the same blood, believed long gone still, flows from wounds and bruises, invisible under crimson armour.

The good thing about the devil in red, is that no one can see him bleed. The good thing about an angel in white, is that she is forever imprinted with the blood of those she loved too much to let live.


	4. Chapter 2

It would be five years before I would finally muster the courage to ask my parents to go to school, even if it were for one day. I clearly remember it was a cloudy autumn afternoon, and the wind yawned lazily across the leaf-scattered ground, still warm from summer. We had been camping in the same field for over two months now, in part because, despite their best efforts to deny it, my parents and the rest of the group of travelers were, much to their dismay, tired. Tired of travelling. After long years, it seemed the excitement of being a rebel, of treading outside the norm of society, of living life in the wild, drinking and smoking and simply living from day to day, was beginning to take a toll on them. Some of the older leaders, an old couple who drove a rattling, rusted caravan whose walls were plastered in layers of multicoloured, flaking paint, and windows adorned with hanging dreamcatchers, stamps and odd objects that clattered against the glass like an orchestra out of tune, had begun to propose longer stays, and less reckless journeys. I had even overheard them once, accidentally, confiding in my parents that they were considering leaving us-leaving this life behind.

To me, it was unthinkable. But I had learnt to challenge my narrow beliefs, the books, whose pages I had flipped time after time, reading every single corner, teaching me that there was always something new, and other angles at which to look at things.

So I was going to ask them if I could go to were not far from New York.

As I made my way across the frost-crested field and to the campfire , my heart thudded in my chest. Out of all the subjects, the ones that fascinated me the most were the ones that explained how the world was constructed. Why the grass was the colour green, why the fold-up chairs sunk under my parents' weight, metal legs sinking into the trampled ground, why my heart was drumming, and my breath hitching. Why. It was the most important question, and I knew at that moment that I would do anything I possibly could to pursue its answer, and once I had it, to help people with it.

I wanted to be a doctor.

But then there were the subjects I was not good at. Not that I had not tried, over and over, to understand them, but I simply could not grasp the fluctuations of them, their volatility. Psychology, literature. All a thousand variables of how the human brain could react, and never predictable, never dictated by fact, but only based on it. It was impossible to know how a person /loved/, or how they thought, because it was all a strange concoction of thought, memory and reaction. Those were the subjects that I did not understand. I was fascinated by them, yes, but in a sort of distanced awe.

That was why I was so afraid of what my parents would say.

"Mom, Dad" I stepped into the circle of the campfire, feeling the heat of the flames licking at the bones of my legs as I curled my arms round myself, hugging the book to my chest. It was an old hardback on anatomy, and my favourite. The tips of my fingers ran nervously against the rough edges of the cover, pressing against the flaky paper in a hope, maybe, to catch a whiff of its comforting scent.

"Yes, darling?" my mother coughed, exhaled a cloud of white smoke which mingled with that of the fire, and handed the cigarette to my father, before leaning over to take a sip from a plastic cup. When I still hadn't said anything, voice grovelling in my throat, she nudged me on with a small nod of her head and a warm, wide smile that reminded me of sunshine on summer leaves.

"I-I... look, you know I've been studying a lot for a lot of years, um... reading a lot, and reading the things again, and trying to find out things about stuff myself." I winced here at the sudden fall of her father's face- last year, after having seen it in a book, I had decided to experiment and dissect a frog. I had killed it, cutting it apart with my battered swiss penknife, and I'd never seen my father so angry, before or since. His words, pained, furious, still echo in my mind now: _Never kill creature unless it is pain, or its death is necessary for the greater good._ I have lived by it ever since.

"You see, I-um... I've been thinking, you know, about what I might wanna do when I'm grown up." I imprisoned my trembling lip under harsh teeth. "And I know both of you don't like the city, and I know you want me to stay here travelling with you for ever and ever, but..." I grasped for the words, and tried to ignore their puzzled stares. "But I think... I've decided I want to be a doctor" I beamed, triumphantly, and suddenly saw a way out, a way to convince them. The truth of why I was doing this.  
"I'll help people. Make people like uncle Dan not have achy knees any more, or make a baby's cough go away" I nodded, almost hysterically, as my parents' expressions grew from confused to astonished.

My father was the first to speak.  
"That's a lovely thing, sweet. We're very happy you want to help people, aren't we, Miranda?" he gazed at his wife, a smile engraved upon his lips, and she nodded energetically, a spark dancing in her eyes. It felt as if my whole world were suddenly under a bright summer's sun. "But..." and with the single world, it was as if the sky had been smudged with a stormcloud "You've never... you've never been to school. We didn't want to send you there, because we want the best for you, and we know that you _love_ learning. There, they just make you want to stop learning things"

 _That's impossible_ I remember thinking, sullenly. _I'd never want to stop learning._

"-But" my mother continued, and this time the word seemed to carry an utterly different tone, one of hope. "If you really want, we can teach what you can, that is, what we remember" Their gazes were lost in each other's, in mutual understanding, as if they were having an inaudible conversation as well as the one with me. "We can get a hold of some text books, though, of course, you'll probably be a few years behind, but that's no problem, we've got plenty of..."

"No, no!" I piped up, a grin spreading across my face. I shouldn't have been scared that they would be opposed to my ambition. "Mom, dad, I've already learnt so many things! All those books at the end of my bunk, I've read them over and over. I know them by heart, really! And I might be a little bit behind, because the highest I've got are year 11 books, and I'm fourteen now, but I can catch up... But... but to do that and be a doctor I need to go, um... well that's what I was going to ask you! I want to go to school! Just-just one day... "  
I was so lost in my enthusiasm that I failed to notice how their jaws dropped as they crossed an astonished gaze. In all that time, they had paid little attention to my obsession with the battered school books, so much that they never noticed their child had been learning material destined for sixteen-year-olds. I would barely have been in high school, and yet I had ingeniously, with no mental limitations, learnt enough that I could pass the last years of high school with relative ease. I believe I had absorbed all this information without difficulty because I din't _know_ I shouldn't be able to. No one had told me I was too young to learn those things, and I was convinced that the content was that which children of my age studied anyway, so the very concept of being too young was nonexistent to me. Of course, the knowledge hadn't just come to me magically: at first, the more advanced books made absolutely no sense to me, so I had grudgingly started with lower levels, and occasionally questioned an adult about what a certain term meant, or how to solve a certain problem. Other than that, without anyone telling me I _couldn't_ , I had given myself no limitations.

And pass high school I did.

After that day, my parents had decided after much discussion that, seeing as we were near to New York, they would drive me there for one day to visit my mother's old school. I still remember how she seemed sickened by the very notion of returning to Hell's Kitchen, and how, at night, when she thought I was sound asleep, she would tell my father in whispers that it would be too much of a shock for me, that they had raised me away from all the smoke and people, and that once I was put in a classroom, I would see how different I was from all the others, and that my books could not have taught me enough to pass any of the tests.

This only made me want to prove them wrong. In the next few days before we left for New York, I studied harder than ever, memorizing things I already knew like the back of my hand. I practiced introducing myself, rehearsed how I could sound as clever as possible when asking the person in charge that all I wanted to do was sit exams sometime, as my parents and I had agreed. They still didn't want me in the classroom, moving to the city was completely out of the question. "Not until she's college-age" they said. Despite everything, I know they were overtly proud, breathing out almost constantly words of how smart their daughter was. I didn't like it; I had never liked attention, but it was a small price to pay for my ambitions.

And on a chill autumn's day, I finally met Hell's Kitchen, and with it, he who would be the love of my life: Jack Murdock.


	5. Chapter 3

_And, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a chapter from Matt's point of view! Warning: this chapter is fairly gritty, with violence, some swearing, and an implied hint at rape at one point. I'm trying to echo the show's tone here, so the fanfic will be fairly gritty throughout. If you're comfortable with the general tone of the series, though, there's little chance you won't be fine with reading this. Enjoy!_

My back slammed against the wall in a firework of pain, bones ringing and reverberating, flesh thudding and clenching, ready to bruise. The air guttered out of my lungs, and muscle sprung pressure to my feet, tingling on the concrete.  
I leapt.  
The man buckled under my hurdled weight, and fell. I heard his skull clang against stone, smelled his sweat as he wrestled underneath me, clawing at the red of my armour. Nearby, a stray dog trotted with unclipped claws into the alley, and scampered away, its heartbeat a staccato. There was no one else nearby.

I felt the gun shift under the man's belt before I heard the finger tingling against the trigger, and threw myself out of the way just in time, grimacing at the slippery prickle of rainy air against my cheek.  
Better than a bullet.  
The gunshot pierced my ears, and I staggered a split second in pain before hurling myself at the man again, knee sinking into his stomach with a sound like a boot in mud. The gun skid away with a clatter, still scorching the humid air as it settled on the tarmac. We wrestled for a moment, his body heavy and throbbing with storming blood beneath me, until my arms found the floundering sketches his formed in the air, and twisted them into a hold. I could feel the strain of bone and sinew, hear the muted crackle of his marrow like a stick before it snaps.  
'Move, and both your bones break' I whispered, voice low, almost guttural. He squirmed, heart beating at the knee I had against his chest. I heard the rustle, like a broom, that his short hair made against the floor as he nodded mutely, blinking.  
'Good' I shifted, cocking my head so I could hear his heartbeat better. 'Now tell me where you're keeping the girls'  
Ever since the imprisonment of Fisk, crime in Hell's Kitchen had done nothing but increase. With the overhanging threat of the Kingpin off their shoulders, gangs had become bolder, and for the past months the city had been, more than usual, a boiling mess of fights, shootings and failed rises to power. In this case, it was the Russians, whose survivors, after having wilted to almost nothing after the bombings, had surged suddenly back into power with renewed strength. "Agent Foster" hadn't been lying to me when he taunted about the kidnapped boy; for the last weeks, missing reports had been popping up all over Hell's Kitchen like molehills on a field, especially of teenage girls. And despite my efforts, this man was the first, and only, lead I had on where they might be.

'Where are they?' I growled again, after having received no response. My fist cracked against his jaw, and a whiff of copper erupted with a crackling explosion that sent a shock, as always, all the way up the bones of my arm. Training and meditation had helped me harness the acute way in which I felt every inch of skin, muscle, and bone, and thus withstand the heightened pain, and this was way below my normal threshold, but that wasn't to say it didn't hurt.  
'Where?'

The man spat-I scented the bitter bile and sharp blood slashing the air by my face  
'You won't be able to save them, you know?' His speech was thickly accented, almost mocking. I bit the inside of my cheek, the pain bringing me sharply back into focus, and abruptly sank my knee into his side. I heard a rib creak and splinter, like splitting wood, accompanied by a howling scream.

I grinned, half a grimace "That's what the last one told me. Now tell me where they are. If you don't, I'll break the next one" As if to prove my point, I shifted the cap of my knee up an inch, where I could feel the relief of the next rib under his muscled torso, and waited. Nothing.  
"Last chance" I lifted myself up on the other leg without letting go of my hold on him, ready to come down with all the force I could muster, but as soon as I was about to deliver the blow he let out a whimper, legs scrabbling uselessly under my weight.

"Okay, okay! I'll tell you!" he let out a choking wheeze- I could feel his jaw creaking as he chewed out the words."They're, they're... I am not certain of the exact place, but I'm sure they're in..." a sudden stench of cigarettes and festering halitosis wafted to my nostrils. He was grinning. "in one of my buddy's beds, with handcuffs, sucking on their-"

He didn't finish his sentence. A shriek pierced the alley, sketching the contours of the rubble and dumpsters in sudden vividity, as the man sobbed, writhing in agony. I wrinkled my nose at the simmering of exposed flesh, but still kept my grasp on his arms, the right one twisted back at an unnatural angle. A ringing shard of bone protruded from his elbow, subject of my sudden fury, and despite his screams, I found myself pulling back on it even further, the moan of stretching tendons scratching at my ears like violin strings.  
"Tell me!"

"Fuck you...rggghh" he moaned, his throat clenching and unclenching in gurgles, panting a putrid stench to my nostrils. It was gone, though, when I twisted his mangled arm back even further, and he threw his head back, chest reverberating with screams like a beaten drum.

"Tell me where those girls are!"

"No... arrgghh! Steeldome warehouse!Docks!North, far in the edge of Hell's Kitchen...hrggh, please!"  
I released him. His heart was thumping rapidly from exhaustion and pain, but he was telling the truth. I turned, stretched my cramped hands, wanting to wash the stench of his breath from where it had adhered, glue-like, to my suit. He had also given me a punch to the temple, and I could feel the blood run slick beneath my mask, caking my forehead in a gooey occupied I was with this, that I almost didn't hear him scramble with his unbroken arm for the discarded gun. I whipped around, and with the force of my weight behind me, delivered a booming blow to his neck, which collapsed like cooked spaghetti, before crashing my knuckles against his head, underneath his jaw, again and again until he fell unconscious with a dead sigh.

If someone found him in time, there wouldn't be too much long-term damage.

I took a breath, stood still, questing beyond the thumping of my heart, the churning of my blood, the stench of metal and garlic and oily rainwater, and into the noises, scents, and temperatures of the world beyond, painted in crystalline nitidity by the surge of adrenaline that gushed through my veins. The docks. It would take me approximately half an hour to get there, and, I hoped, woudn't be enough time for one of this man's comrades to find him and alert the others.

Little did I know that when I arrived there, I would discover that more than one masked vigilante was intent on saving these girls' souls.


	6. Chapter 4

Smoke. Noise. Cars.

Just like they'd described.

I was hunched in the corner of our van, pressed against the backseat as if I was in danger of falling out, my eyes peeking, terrified, at the hubbub of the city. Even through the glass windows, the noise seemed to pour over me like the thundering of a waterfall, an orchestra of klaxons and shouting voices and rustling footsteps. When I looked up at the sky, the towering buildings made gashes in the horizon, so that at times, only a chunk of polluted, grey cloud was visible.

I shivered, and looked at the backs of my parents' heads, trying to divine what their expressions were. My mother rustled in the driver's seat, clearly uncomfortable, and my father sat stone still, gazing out at the road with a wonder equal to mine. I suddenly felt an immense wave of gratitude, and guilt. They hadn't set foot in a city for over fifteen years, and now they were doing so, just for me. I remember promising to myself in that moment that if I ever had children, I would be as good a parent as they were to me.

I shivered again as the car came to a halt, and suddenly a sickening sensation sunk into my stomach, a serpent that writhed and twisted in my gut. We were there, at the school, and all of a sudden I felt like shrinking into the van, letting it swallow me up, anything but having to face the people and chaos and scrutiny that I would be subjected to.

But I want to be a doctor.

A frown of determination suddenly wrinkled my forehead, and without further thought, I lurched out of the door my parents were holding open for me. And suddenly, like a tidal wave, the air of the city engulfed me. Smoke. Heat. Petrol. Metal. The finest drizzle of speckling rain. I gaped, awed at the sudden surge of noise and scents, so many at once, so many that I couldn't take a single one in... I felt like running back into the van, but instead did the best I could to straighten my back, smoothed the fabric of my dress, and started following my parents' footsteps. I had my favorite book tucked to my chest again- if anything, I knew it would at least make me look intellectual.

I winced when we reached the school gates; through the bars, which reminded me, terrifyingly, of a bird cage, I could glimpse the running, shouting figures of hundreds, and hundreds of children. My heart thumped in my chest. Suddenly, I wanted to back away, leave this place, run back home and live out the rest of my short human life in the peaceful oblivion of the countryside, with only dogs and cows to keep me company.

But no. _I'm going to be a doctor_.

As we pushed open the gates and walked inside, I felt the serpent in my belly clench even tighter, making me stagger with a sickness that slithered its way up my chest, leeching to the back of my throat like a slug. Hurriedly, I positioned myself on the other side of my parents as we walked, so that they acted like a wall from the herd of children that squabbled, gossiped, and kicked around balls in the open ground. I didn't want them to see me, and for the first time I was experiencing what it felt like to feel self-conscious. My body felt alien in the long dress that trailed almost to my ankles- the other girls, gathered around in giggling circles, wore baggy jeans and neon t-shirts, platform trainers making me feel dwarfed in my battered, third-hand shoes. My mother had combed back my dark hair into a long ponytail, but all of a sudden it felt like it was tugging at my head, weighing it down, stretching my face into ugliness. I had never even bothered about my appearance, but now I felt like some deformed creature walking through a medieval trial, every single pair of eyes staring, judging...

I was more than relieved when my father swung open the door, and we slipped into the hallway. Sudden coolness washed over me- the students were in recess, so it was empty, and echoing lightly with the sound of our footsteps. I abruptly realized I was trembling, my teeth clamping down the sickness I felt. And then my mother's arm was around my shoulder, squeezing it, comforting. I glanced up at her, and she smiled, making the snake stop writhing in my stomach.

It wasn't long before we reached the principal's office. The plan was to ask her whether I could simply sit high school exams one day, without having to attend. After all, I did know enough already, despite my age.

The door brushed open into a stuffy room, packed with shelves stacked, in turn, with hundreds of flimsy cardboard boxes, labelled in messy handwriting with permanent markers. In the middle sat a broad desk almost as tall as myself, and twenty times as intimidating, presided by the hulking figure of a grim-faced, middle-aged woman. Her eyes, a dull grey, were drooped by black circles, and her mouth made a sloping curve, moving in waves by her jaw, busy in clamping down again and again on chewing gum.

"Stress" I thought "Insomnia. Probably chewing that stuff for nausea. I could probably do with some, too."

"Welcome to Hell's Kitchen High School" she murmured, voice flat, monotonous. I had been hoping for intellectual enthusiasm, but it looked like I wasn't going to get it. "What can I do for you today?"

My parents delved into explaining the situation, and I found my eyes darting to and fro between them as if I were watching a match of table tennis. The conversation was dreary, and short-lived, and I found all the excitement that had been tingling through my body sink to my feet.

"What's your name, then?" she finally turned to me.

"Uh... Magpie"

"Magpie?" she snorted, chuckling, then cut short the moment she realized we didn't follow her laughter. "What, really?" She looked from my scowling parents to me, then back again, then raised her eyebrows with a shrug. "Well, we don't get many of those around here, that's all. In both senses, the bird, and the name..." she sucked in a sharp breath, and I suddenly felt a dead weight in my toes, my chin beginning to tremble. I clamped teeth down on the inside of my cheek, hard, and looked down at my feet.

"... well, she is very young, but maybe we could sort something out... Magpie, would you mind waiting outside as your parents and I have a little chat?"

I was startled, and swiftly looked up at my mother and father. They nodded, quickly and with a smile, and before I knew it I found myself leaving the room, feeling nothing but dejected. Before I closed the door, I heard the principle beckoning them to sit down, and stirring out paperwork from one of the overhead boxes. Then the door clicked shut behind me, and I was alone.

The hallway was strangely quiet as I stood there, breathing shallow and rapidly, turning the encounter over and over in my head. What if it didn't work out? What if I had to start attending school? I'd have to go all the way back to elementary school, and be mocked, and jeered at, and by the the time I was a doctor I would be old, so old...

And as if summoned by my thoughts, a sudden clash and clatter resonated through the hallway- the opening of a door from the outside.

I shrunk into my corner, hoping not to be seen, hoping desperately that whoever it was would just walk past without seeing me, that I wouldn't have to talk to anyone...

The footsteps echoed closer, and through rapidly darting eyes, I glimpsed two figures approaching, silhouetted in the sickly green that shone through the translucid windows. One was clearly an adult-probably a teacher, judging by the sports bag that hung from his shoulder. The second was shorter, a boy, who strode slowly with one hand pressed against his cheek, as if he were hurt.

My heart beat faster as they approached, and sunk when, instead of walking on, they turned and came straight towards where I stood. They stopped straight in front of the principal's door, and after giving the boy a pointedly stern look that said "stay", the teacher rapped at the glass pane, a look of tiredness on his face. A muffled "come in" faintly came from inside, and he pushed open the door, coiling his head round the frame. A snappy exchange followed:

"What is it?"

"The Murdock boy again."

"What did he do this time?"

"Got in a fight with Spencer, did more damage to himself than he did to him"

A sigh, then "Alright,tell him to wait there. I'll see him once I'm finished"

I watched with raised brows as the teacher gently closed the door, gave the boy another pointed look, and strode back the way he came, leaving the hallway in complete silence except for the kid's heavy breathing. Warily, I turned my gaze on him, looking up and down his scruffy demeneaur.

He was tall, and muscled, but probably the same age as me. His broad shoulders were covered by a sweat-stained, plain T-shirt, and his shoes, like mine, had the appearance of having had several lives. He was hunched over, palm covering his cheek, but beyond it I glimpsed a glimmer of sapphire eyes, staring at the floor with an infuriated kind of harshness. I almost gasped, though, as I saw why he held his face- tiny stains of crimson trickled through his fingers, where, as I gathered from the conversation, he must have been punched.

"That's going to need stitches"

It came out suddenly, without thought, like a bird fluttering from my lips, and as soon as I realized that I'd spoken I clamped my teeth down on my tongue, cursing myself. But it was too late. He had already turned to me, eyes ablaze in hot blue fire, and was gently smiling with unveiled amusement, his hand back down by his side so I could see the long gash that swept his cheek.

"You new?" he said after a while, and I trembled, tearing my gaze away and fixing it on the floor. _I hope not_. Vaguely, I thought I must say something in response, but at that moment the snake of axiety returned to my stomach, curdling my words into muteness. By now, it was too late to reply, he would just think I was stupid, I would just pretend I never heard him... no, no, he had said it too loudly, no one would ever believe that...

My inner squabble of thought was abruptly interrupted by the creaking of the outside door, and suddenly the hall was flooded with noise, the echoing and clanging of teenage voices, the slapping of shoes on the floor, all surging around me like a growling beast, ready to tear me apart. I shrank back, but this time swallowed, and steeled myself in preparation for having to speak to anyone else. I wouldn't make a fool of myself again.

The children walked past, some stopping and pushing into classes at the front or the side, others lingering back and leaning against the wall, as I was. People brushed past me and the boy without so much as a glance, and those who did look in our direction mostly snorted a derisive comment to my companion, who returned their wounding comments with a plastered grin or chuckle. I suddenly found myself relaxing, buoyed by the realization that no one was interested in me in the slightest.

That wasn't entirely true.

As the crowd thinned, most of them having entered their classes or moving on, I found myself face-to-face with a group of about four boys and a girl, pointing at me from across the corridor. They seemed to wait until they were mostly alone and then, with ominous confidence, strode towards where I stood.

"Hey, new girl" One of them, the leader it seemed, stood in front of me, legs splayed, arms crossed on his chest. "Name?".

I didn't answer, but this time it wasn't out of shyness. Lips pressed into a tight line, I was staring at him furiously, fists clenching by my side at his threatening rudeness.

"Hey, you deaf?" his voice was lowered, mocking, and, suddenly bringing his face dangerously close to mine, he snapped his fingers right under my nose, making me flinch. He erupted in laughter, and so did his companions, their cackling prickling the hairs on my arms like electricity.

"Go away" I hissed, and immediately regretted the quietness of my voice. I wished it had sounded more intimidating.

"What, you don't wanna be our friend?" his face contorted into mock offended surprise, and he brought a hand to his mouth, as if insulted.

"No" I muttered "Not at all"

"What?!" he was suddenly very close- I could feel his breath tingling my nose "Are you crazy? Do you have any idea who I-"

"No means no, Sam"

I snapped my head around in the direction of the new voice, and almost gasped as I realized it was the boy standing next to me, the one who had got into a fight. I never would have dreamed he would come in my defense.

"Oh really, does it?" My assailant snorted, pushing himself back from the wall, and with a cocky, arrogant spring to his step, turned to face him. "Funny you'd know that, Murdock, it's not like your momma had the best of luck with the boys-"

His sentence was cut off by an abrupt crunch as Murdock delivered a lightning punch to his jaw, ramming him against the wall beside me. I darted away, eyes wide with shock. The two boys were wrestling now, shoving each other against the bricks, shouting muffled obscenities as they lunged at each others' faces with fists of iron. Watching numbly for a moment, my brain spurred me into action as the bully pinned the already injured boy to the floor, and began trying to smash his head against the tiles. Hardly thinking, I leaped, and suddenly I was on top of him, fingernails digging into his throat, hoping to find the windpipe. He howled, and threw himself backwards. I jumped just in time, so that instead of crushing me under his weight as he had hoped, he thudded back against the hard tiles with a thud, and lay there, twisting in pain.

Heart racing, I turned, reaching out a hand to help the other boy up, before spinning only just in time to dodge the flying fist of another one of the bullies, who, upon the falling of his leader, must have decided to take initiative.

Adrenaline boiling a wildfire in my veins, I kicked without thought. My foot thudded into his groin with a muted crunch, and he doubled over, eyes goggling, mouth open in a silent howl of pain.

I stood, staring, thinking that perhaps I should apologize, when a heavy hand descended on my shoulder. I spun, fists high. My gaze met boiling blue eyes, and I abruptly relaxed, letting my hands fall, lips breaking into half a grimace, half a grin. His did the same, and for a moment we stood there, silently surveying the other, until he broke away with a furtive glance backwards, where the rest of the group stood dumbly, obviously debating whether to go after us or help their leaders up. I took this as a chance to run.

"Run?" I panted, again meeting his gaze.

"Run" he conceded.

And we ran.

Looking back, I think we didn't really know where we were going. We just sped down the corridor, turned, passed classes and signs and chairs in a smudged blur, hearts echoing in our chests, feet drumming against the floor, turning corner after corner in desperate sprints to escape our furious followers. I followed him blindly, not knowing the layout of the school, and sometimes it seemed as if his eyes blazed streaks of blue flame in the air behind us, like sparks from a too-hot coal.

And suddenly, he stopped.

I skidded to a halt, breath catching in my throat, eyes wild, and barely had time to open my mouth before he pulled me sideways, towards him, into a wall...

No, it wasn't a wall. As the darkness engulfed me, the sound of our assailants running thundered by us, then dimmed, gradually more and more distant.

For a moment we simply stood there, our giggles echoing in the small space, merging into a flawed symphony of small gasps and tingling chuckles. I sank to the floor, back against the wall, and I felt him do the same beside me.

"Thanks" he panted, heaving a huge sigh.

"Why?" I cocked my head to the side, confused.

"For helping me not get beaten up. I think it's the first time I haven't" he chuckled, but there was a serious note of gratitude in his voice.

"Oh" I paused "Then I suppose I owe the same to you. Thank you" I smiled, then drew in a huge sigh. For a moment we sat there in silence, blinking and realizing that in the darkness, it didn't make any difference if we had our eyes open or shut. The place smelt of old cloth, airing, and cleaning products, but cooped us in an embrace of still safety.

He drew in a short breath. "So, what's your name?"

Hesitating, I wondered whether he would laugh at me like the principal had. But I owed him this, at least. Biting my lip, I murmured "Magpie"

"Oh" he said, and for a moment I cringed in anticipation of his laughter. "I've never heard anyone called that before"

"You're not the first one to tell me that today" I remarked, bitterly.

He seemed to notice my tone, and grew silent for a moment. I turned my head towards him, trying to divine at least a silhouette, but all my gaze met was pitch blackness.

"I like it" he interjected suddenly, and, despite my blindness, I almost sensed him smiling. "You could call yourself Maggie, I suppose. It's a nice name too"

I grinned "Yes, it is. Maggie..." I savored the sound "I think I'll call myself that from now on. But... you really like it?"

"Yeah!" Now I could feel him grin "Aren't those some kinda bird? And you have bad luck... or good luck, when you see one?... One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl..."

"Four for a boy!" We finished in unison, and, chuckling, had to sit in silence for a moment longer to regain our breaths.

"My parents don't believe in those things. I think they just liked the bird" I smiled, feeling suddenly lighthearted and relaxed for the first time that day.

"My mom would kill me for saying it. She'd say it's "superstitious", whatever that means. She's a catholic."

"Ah" I murmured, shying away from the subject of religion, which I knew next to nothing about. Silence again weighed down on us, a palpable, giant being in the stuffy air.

"I'm Jack, by the way. Jack Murdock" I heard a rustle of clothes, and an expectant silence.

"You're holding your hand out, aren't you" I blurted out, and we both giggled "You know I can't see it, right?"

Chuckling, I heard him stand up, with some difficulty, almost tripping over me as he got to his feet. I clicked my tongue, and followed suit, feeling the air around me in search of something orientating. "I'm sure there's a light switch in here somewhere..."

We fumbled around for a few moments, our hands scanning the walls for something that could illuminate the small room. All of a sudden, it seemed closed, stuffy, the weight of the darkness seeming to try to wrap round my throat and clog down my neck. Wincing, I scrambled for the door, not caring whether the bullies were right outside , only wanting to flee into fresh air, open space, light...

And abruptly, we collided.

The flash burst in brilliant blue, blinding white, rivulets of silver. My fingers snapped closed, enveloping the electricity, extinguishing it. We stood there, less than an inch apart, staring at each other, and our eyes met in the longest stare I have ever held.

 _So that is what an electric shock feels like._ I breathed out. Our gazes broke. We turned, opened the door, and stepped out into the hallway. He flicked the light switch off behind us.

The experience had been so surreal that, as we wordlessly walked back to the principal's office, arriving just as my parents walked out, and even when, after bidding the strange acquaintance goodbye with nothing more than a smiling stare, I clambered into the van and was driven away from the city, I still couldn't grasp what had happened, and neither- I later found out- had he.

It seemed, after having given it some thought, that we had collided just at the moment he had touched the light switch, which must have been broken, as it had sent a shock of electrocution down his arm. And, in that exact same moment, skin had brushed skin, and a blue spark had erupted at the exact same instant the light of the closet had flickered on. A flash, a bolt, an arrow.

In the years that followed, I would never forget it, and though the strange boy's face and voice would fade with time, I would never forget the flashing blue, which, in my memory, etched the brilliant contours of his eyes in screaming, laughing electricity.

And, thanks to chance,or destiny, if either of those exist, that was not the last time I unprecedentedly bumped into Jack Murdock.


	7. Chapter 5

_This chapter is quite short- I just wanted to continue introducing Maggie as a character in the present day, and also start to reveal something about her... I promise everything will make sense soon! Enjoy!_

I awoke with a start. Scarlet rivulets snaked across my vision, and pincers of steel scraped at my chest, at my throat. This was the aftermath of yesterday's whiplash of memory, yet now, as I sat with a groan and prepared myself for the day, it was gone, like a pebble that had sunk to the bottom of a deep pool only to once again be stirred and dragged to the surface by a wayward, flashing wave. But not today.

The morning was as usual. Silence hung between the robed bodies as they went about on their chores, rustling, but without any exchange of words save for the odd hushed whisper. I found myself, as usual, distant, as if I were detached from my body and drifting behind it like a kite at the mercy of the winds. The infirmary was close to empty, as it always was these days, with both my patients soundly asleep and- I could tell- only feigning their "severe" afflictions for the roof, food, and bed the church would provide for them. Despite this, I said nothing to no one, and allowed them to stay under my care. After all, they weren't the only ones who had knelt before the steps of this half-abandoned place and sought sanctuary.

And there was no shortage of space, either. Unlike years before, the long room echoed with dreary emptiness, cots veiled in white sheets, medicine bottles coating themselves in dust. And I would have been happy, if I were to have the notion that people no longer grew sick as they used to. But I knew differently: their illnesses were not cured, and people still withered in the face of hospital bills. Nothing had changed.

But they had forgotten us.

And, under the whisper of time, we too had whittled ourselves into memory. Through transition or death, the stone rooms of the church had gradually emptied, void of pious souls, until all they did was echo under the howl of winter wind, and freeze in silence.

Solely four sisters remained, and each one of us had been carved by our own sufferings until we hung like fluttering banners from life, tied to this empty place, to a duty that no longer required us, and were only ever embraced by the airy arms of fate.

I closed my eyes, breathed in the faded scent of worn antiseptic, and sat for a moment, perhaps a minute, perhaps an hour, allowing my mind to engulf all that surrounded me, past the stone walls and into the quiet drift of the empty street and the melody of warbling birds. It was moments like these where I felt at peace, unafflicted by past troubles, as if the very air I breathed were a soothing balm to my soul. Slowly, I felt the gentle fingers of sunlight filter through the window and onto my cheek, and for a moment I felt I was somewhere else, a young soul without a worry, free like the wind or a stream, with no guilt, no loss.

Then I opened my eyes.

And the world was back, flooding me in harsh daylight, cold and hard-edged and real. I sighed, stood, and nimbly strode towards the door, then down narrow steps, behind benches, and out through giant, looming doors.

It was often that I did this: leave the keeping confines of the church, and wade through the silence of streets and alleys, treading the pavements of almost-abandoned neighborhoods. There was no longer any need for me- I hadn't had a patient in over three months, and therefore my only occupation was to wander, see, and hear.

Yet the church was not my only devotion.

I do not believe that one can live-truly live- from religion, inside it, carrying it within them all the time. I believe it is a handbook, like the body and its senses are to the soul, to understand the world, soothe its punishments, and gather the courage to live. Like a guardian angel, it stands beside me night, dawn, day and twilight, and in it I find the fuel and the essence of life, yet life itself, in its entirety, is what fluctuates, what changes, and therefore makes us alive.

And once, my life had been studies. Then, it had been overwhelmed by the alchemy of love, which melded into my soul the warmth of family, the one we created together. When that had been severed, I had wandered, wayward, for years, and remained that way now, though small pleasures tethered me to life with thin threads.

But throughout all that time, there had been something else. Something brutal, something magical, something ethereal and bloody and utterly insane. Something that gave me the purpose of living, and at the same time took it all away.

This is what I am.

I vault into the high window of the shadowed warehouse. Tiles clatter. My bones groan, not like they used to, yet muscle and sinew is as strong as ever, clamped in ferrous determination. I stride over rubble. The chest beckons me. Whispers. I approach. The clasps giggle under my fingertips as I flick them open, and the lid, swinging open, greets me with a sweet-smelling kiss. Death. End of endless suffering. The needles sing like clattering teeth. I shift them, and below, eyes stare up at me, hollow, empty. Ready to be filled. Fabric flares as I pull it from the chest, electrifies my skin as I slowly, methodically, attire myself in silent garb. Whiteness engulfs me. The mask chants. Time to get to work. I pull it down.

This is what I shall always be. A fallen mind, a risen soul.

An Angel of Death.


End file.
